<font color="#FF0033"><b>FICCI Frames '05:</b></font> A lesson in storytelling

Nigel Cole, business director, global, BBC Broadcast, dwelt on the finer points of story-telling in an interesting session on day two of FICCI Frames

FICCI Frames essentially revolves around the ‘business of entertainment’, yet the convention has left some room for presentations on unconventional topics such as the one on storytelling by Nigel Cole, business director, global, BBC Broadcast on April 5.

Cole began his hour-long session with a simple statement – “The art of great storytelling grows out of the telling of great stories!”

Well, great stories are required to hook viewers or listeners, but what is equally important is how the story is communicated.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle, said Cole, expounded the unities of time, place and action in drama. “That is, one place, one time and one position!” he said.

However, storytellers today, especially those who use the medium of film or television, need not adhere to such rigid rules. “The structure of a tale is not about plots, but about the simple exposition of a story,” said Cole.

For the English drama ‘Six Feet Under’, for instance, (the show was telecast on ZEE English last year) producer-director Allan Ball used the title track of the show very effectively to communicate the central theme of the serial, which is death.

“The show revolves around the Fisher family that runs a funeral home. Yet, there are no in-your-face visuals of the characters in the track,” said Cole. “Ball, instead, builds up curiosity by focusing on the family’s traditional business, which is managing dead bodies, backed, of course, by haunting music and slick imagery that makes the viewer sit up and take notice of the show.”

The title track of the ‘The Simpsons’ (telecast on STAR World), on the other hand, dwells on the quirkiness of the family – be it of the father Homer, mother Marge, son Bart and daughters Lisa and Maggie.

Cole, during the course of the session, also emphasised that the nature of storytelling was changing. He cited a commercial for Mercedes, which “masquerades as a movie trailer’ to illustrate his point.

“Creating engaging characters in a compelling narrative is the principle of storytelling,” he said. “But the important thing is you must know how to resist external pressures and tell the story your way.” © 2005 agencyfaqs!